


This Immortal Coil

by MarbleHeart



Category: Good Omens (TV)
Genre: Comfort, Cuddling & Snuggling, Fluff and Angst, Hugs, M/M, Pre-Aziraphale and Crowley's Bodyswap (Good Omens), The Night After the Almost Apocalypse (Good Omens), The Night At Crowley's Flat (Good Omens)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-03
Updated: 2020-12-03
Packaged: 2021-03-09 23:33:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,535
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27855174
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MarbleHeart/pseuds/MarbleHeart
Summary: This work was written based on the prompt "Aziraphale giving Crowley a tight hug that makes them lose their breath."Aziraphale reconsiders Crowley's offer to stay after Armageddon't, and comfort takes its course from there.
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Comments: 4
Kudos: 76
Collections: Good Omens OTP Prompts Event Works





	This Immortal Coil

**Author's Note:**

> Through this experience I have learned the true power of prompts. Originally I didn't know if I would ever be able to participate in an event (read: I didn't know if I could deal with having a hard set deadline), especially right now since my writing brain hasn't been working normally for most of the year, but I went to the prompt generator for shits and giggles just to see what it would give me. When I received this prompt it got my wheels spinning so well that I wrote the whole thing in like two days lmfao  
> I hope y'all enjoy my take (or one of them at least) on this missing scene :)

On the bus ride back from Oxfordshire, Aziraphale had again considered Crowley's offer to stay with him. Far more than just the once, in fact. He played ping-pong with the idea inside his mind for practically the entire trip.

They rode in silence - each in his own head, but still very much connected by their hands clasped together against the seat, never moving from where they'd landed when the two of them sat down. He didn't quite know _why_ they had done that, actually - but it had happened so easily, so naturally.

Several voices passed through Aziraphale's thoughts, but the one that ultimately stuck with him was Crowley's. Only appropriate, he supposed, given that had been Crowley's role in his life - to be there, the only _true_ constant. 

' _Ye must choose your faces wisely, for soon enouff ye will be playing with fyre_ ' had faded out quite soundly in favor of ' _You don't have a side anymore. Neither of us do. We're on our own side_.'

It did take some time for him to allow himself to accept it, but the truth of Crowley's words gradually sank in. That occurrence meant that, surprisingly, the part of him that ultimately knocked the ball off the table and broke the stalemate, scoring that sudden death point.... it had been the one in favor of changing his mind.

So, when Crowley let go of his hand and stood to get off the bus in front of that swish building in Mayfair, Aziraphale followed (after thanking the driver, of course).

Continuing down the natural path that lead off from that decision was what brought him to stand outside the door of Crowley's flat, mere moments later (after the demon got over the shock), watching him from behind as he fumbled for his key.

Crowley himself was quiet, seemingly afraid to speak much for fear of somehow causing Aziraphale to change his mind again.

It appeared that he had truly settled on his course of action now though, for better or for worse.

Was it wise to be here, to be doing this?

Well, no. Objectively, it wasn't - but he rather thought he was done being wise. For a while, at least.

They had more or less declared their independence, a few hours ago... they had defied Gabriel and Beelzebub, and directly claimed the side of the Earth - they had claimed _each other_. They had done the direct opposite of what was expected of them when they had each failed to swear continued fealty to Heaven and Hell. They wouldn't have done that if being wise was the major concern.

So... really, what did it matter?

It made more sense for them to stick together now. That was rational. That was logical. It was actually safer to be _together_ than it was to be _apart_ , and that was a novel concept. It would take some getting used to.

Being by Crowley's side was also what Aziraphale _desperately_ wanted to do - especially so, knowing that their time was more than likely to be limited by that brazen act of treason they'd committed - and wasn't it time he started to do what made him happy, in this regard?

Something? _Anything?_

Direct defiance had always been a difficult concept for him to grasp, but he could, now. He could, and he _needed to_. He needed to take this bull by its very terrifying horns, for his own sake as well as Crowley's. They were in far too deep now for him to continue to tread as lightly as he had been.

Not that thousands of years of trained behavior and repression could be all shed and dropped quite that easily... but he _had_ originally declined the invitation as a knee-jerk response, in deference to circumstances that had actually already changed by the time Crowley asked him that question - he hadn't yet come up for air, to realize that fact in the moment, but he had now.

Given time, he could beat this. He was still pretty anxious in the current situation, admittedly, but he knew he'd be absolutely beside himself if Crowley was out of his sight after all of that. He began to wring his hands at the mere thought of it.

The sound of the door closing behind him, though expected, was _just_ sharp enough - it was what pushed his overstimulated mind past the breaking point. Aziraphale was completely overcome, and with his back turned to him, Crowley had no idea what was coming.

Once they were safely shut up inside, Crowley took in a breath, intent on bantering a little to try and ease the mood, only to find it suddenly and unceremoniously squeezed right back out of his lungs.

He felt like he was being crushed, but there was a reason for that... and it was that being crushed was exactly what was happening there.

Aziraphale had closed the gap between them and seized onto him, completely stopping his movements, and it was clear he didn't plan to let go for a good while. A pair of angelic arms encircled him from behind, holding him around the waist in a hug tighter than anything even his jeans could ever hope to achieve.

The blonde apparently didn't know - or had temporarily forgotten, more like - his own strength. And _whoo-ee_ , that was hot.

The thought of that made Crowley dizzy, or maybe it was the lack of air.

...maybe it was both, actually. 

With the same sort of monumental self control he had been exercising since about 4004 BC, Crowley pushed the thought away, though. It was _not_ the time for _that_. He knew he'd barely gotten Aziraphale inside his door at all - this was a vulnerable moment. He couldn't afford to show his full hand right now, not even close.

And something was clearly up, besides.

"Angel?" He asked, his voice a bit affected by the other's continued chokehold, although the whole reaction was built upon him being dramatic more than anything else. He didn't need to breathe, after all, despite what his body thought at this point. Those irrelevant lungs of his were so used to breathing like a real human would, after centuries of the practice.

It might have been a habit they'd both picked up, due to blending in over the millennia, but either of them could stop at any moment with no ill effects, and that was the full truth of it.

When Aziraphale answered him, his voice was soft, smaller than it had any right to be, and also muffled due to the fact that his face was pressed into Crowley's shoulder. "I'm so sorry, Crowley. I should have asked before I just did this, dear boy... but, oh, I don't think I could help myself."

Crowley heard him draw a deep breath in through his nose, and wondered if he still smelled of fire - of burnt car, burnt _books_ , or... if he was reaching, maybe even _sulphur_ \- or, perhaps to go in a different direction, those bottles of shitty alcohol he'd been making an honest attempt to drown himself in that afternoon. "I thought I had lost you forever."

"Makes two of us." It was almost painful how true that statement was, actually. Crowley fought off the twinge in his chest as he twisted around in Aziraphale's hold. "Although, I... well. I didn't think there was gonna be a forever. Thought that was it."

Aziraphale thought that was reasonable assumption, given the way it had looked. "It wasn't, though... _somehow_ , it wasn't."

"Heh. Yeah." Crowley laughed, giving the other a little pat on the back. "Did alright for a couple of incompetents."

It drew a chuckle out of Aziraphale, too. "Yes... we did, didn't we."

It also wasn't the time to mention there was still work to be done. They both knew that well enough. It was hanging over their heads and had been since they'd both read that prophecy.

No, this was a small space of time for them to decompress, before they had to start gearing up for the next phase of whatever the Hell or Heaven would happen next.

They stood there a while, just holding each other, trying to plant feet on ground again. After some time had passed, Crowley began to get achy - in a physical sense just as much as he was feeling it emotionally. Gently, he extracted himself from Aziraphale enough to lean back and look at him.

"So, uh..." He started, then paused, and his face went all twitchy for a second.

"What is it, dear?"

He didn't know how to ask, other than just asking... so he guessed that's what he'd have to do. "Since you're, um, already all huggy and stuff... would a cuddle offend your delicate sensibilities?" A teasing grin accompanied the question.

Subterfuge, of course; shield what he wanted with a joke tacked on - it was a well worn tactic of his. He never exposed his belly without a backup plan. The jesting tone opened the avenue he would need in order to laugh this off, since this was the tactic he leaned on most often when he already expected Aziraphale to refuse whatever he'd proposed.

And, _before_ , he probably would've done. The angel almost certainly would've taken that cleverly planned and placed escape hatch.

But... this time, he would _not_.

"That sounds rather lovely, I think." He replied, and slowly dropped his arms, releasing Crowley.

Crowley was taken aback for the second time, but he recovered nicely. "Great." He gave Aziraphale a tiny smile for his trouble, then began to walk down the narrow hall.

The angel watched after him, and when he heard no footsteps following, Crowley turned back around. "C'mon, then." He said, and disappeared around the corner.

With a small amount of trepidation still washing over him, despite his best efforts, Aziraphale followed... to discover that Crowley was leading him to his bedroom. He stopped in the doorway, both from nerves and from the fact that he couldn't help but be sort of spellbound by what he saw.

Objectively, it was an attractive room.

The bed itself was just as he might've expected from the human that Crowley pretended to be - as large as would still nicely fit in the room, and wrapped in some expensive looking monochromatic bedclothes that likely had an astronomical thread count. Currently, Crowley had an absolute nest of pillows arranged at the top, each stuffed into a dark gray pillowcase, and they were piled at the top edge of a black down blanket.

There were a few strings of fairy lights hanging about the room - mimicking stars, if he had to guess. He had the though that Crowley had probably embellished this a bit for his sake, but he couldn't help but wonder which parts, and how much.

The mountain of pillows, at the very least... he had a suspicion _that_ was likely to be a concession made for him - Crowley had always sort of seemed like a 'one pillow in the dead center of the bed' type of person to him.

But the demon knew how he liked his creature comforts, and even though he didn't sleep, he had sung the praises of lounging in a nice soft bed more than once over the period of their companionship.

"This is okay, yeah?" Crowley asked, sort of nervously, as he sat down at the left side of the bed.

Aziraphale beamed at him as he finally moved into the room. "Oh, darling. It's perfect."

The two of them had become disinclined toward casual touch as more and more parts of human society had moved away from it, but some good old fashioned physical comfort was just what the doctor ordered in this case.

They _hadn't_ actually shared a bed before, but the idea of it just felt right, in this moment.

Figuring he just had to go for it, Crowley set his glasses aside on the nightstand, then slithered under the blanket and laid down, clothes swapping to his silky pyjama set on the way (he normally slept in the buff, or in his tank top and boxers, but he wanted to make doubly sure that Aziraphale was comfortable), and he watched as Aziraphale made his way into the bed to join him, also phasing in more appropriate clothing as he did.

Well, it was clothing that would've been bedtime appropriate a couple of centuries ago, at least. He ended up in a pale blue nightgown - Crowley barely got a glimpse of it as the blanket settled down on top of Aziraphale, but he knew it would be occupying more of his brain space than it probably should for a while.

The position Aziraphale chose to lie down into - close, with his back facing Crowley - created a prime opportunity to spoon up against him, and that was just what Crowley did. Normally he might've been at least slightly reluctant to do so, but not right now - not when they both needed each other so badly. That helped him to be brave.

So he wriggled up behind, slid his arms around him, and pulled Aziraphale back against his chest, holding him almost as tightly as the angel had grabbed onto _him_ earlier.

Aziraphale had taken his step in their eternal back and forth waltz, and now it was Crowley's turn. He considered, briefly, then slung his left leg up over the top of Aziraphale's, for good measure.

The act startled him at first, but it occurred to Aziraphale after a moment that Crowley was _coiling_ around him, or doing so as best he could while still in a human shape. But, whereas non-demon snakes would do that to snare their prey, Crowley's instinct was a different one altogether.

That was his way of protecting Aziraphale, wrapping around him, and he was also grounding himself with the knowledge that they had both made it out of this mess of a day alive. They were here together.

Come to think of it, was that what _he_ had done earlier, too? Was _that_ what that hug was?  
  
In either case, he soon found himself fully relaxing back into the hold, delicately stroking Crowley's arm where it rested against his stomach. "You should sleep if it strikes your fancy." He said. "I know you must be absolutely knackered."

Crowley gave an affirmative little noise and rested his chin into the pile of soft curls at the top of Aziraphale's head. "Might do. Not yet, though."

The room lapsed into silence, the only sounds remaining in the still air being their breathing and the occasional extra loud heartbeat from one misbehaving superfluous heart or the other.

Crowley had to admit that at the moment he was still sort of stuck on leaving. They could go... they could _still_ go. There was time. They could get the fuck off the planet before Hell or Heaven knew what happened. Earth was safe - for the time being, at least. He was under no delusions that one side or the other wouldn't try to restart the process at some point. It probably _would_ be wise to stay, to continue to act as protectors.

He also couldn't help thinking that Aziraphale wouldn't be happy somewhere else. His _favorite_ creature comforts were very Earth based. He'd likely do his best to settle, but he wanted to be here, and Crowley never wanted to make him unhappy again. He had done that too much already, over the course of their lives.

Indeed, they were going to have to talk about a lot of things... both of them knew that - and some of those things would definitely be harder to talk about than others.

But, both of them also knew it could at least wait until the morning. The day had been emotionally difficult enough as it was.

In the absence of speech, Aziraphale's thoughts wandered to his lost bookshop. It had been his home for the better part of two centuries - the longest amount of time he'd ever spent in one place - and now it was just... gone.

Crowley had seen it burn - and he'd thought he'd seen Aziraphale burn, too. He hadn't _said_ that, but that part of it had been implied, at the very least by the state Aziraphale had found him in while he was in limbo without a body.

He couldn't see Crowley then, but he could hear him. He heard the same anguish that had been gradually filling up his own heart - ever since they stood across from each other in that bandstand - mirrored back at him. Oh, they had both been so stupid. He was only thankful that now they had a chance to fix it.

Only... there was more than one thing that would need to be fixed. Crowley had thought he was _dead_ , on top of that. The fact that everything had turned out alright in the end wasn't going to make that period of grief just go away.

They had both had a Hell-- a Something of a day, but the fact remained that _he_ had made it back, somehow.

The bookshop couldn't count itself to be so lucky. Made of only wood, brick, and stone, it was vulnerable to things that he simply wasn't, as a near invincible ethereal being. It had fallen to the elements without him there to protect it, always expecting that it would be fine.

He'd never really stopped to think about how much of a fire hazard it was, but he'd never needed to. He wasn't sure how the fire started, exactly, but it had done its structural failure causing deed in any case, and there was nothing he could do about that now.

Obviously, he could fix it via divinity - there was very little that he _couldn't_ do that way - but restoration of the building and memory alteration of that scope... that would be a miracle of a scale that was far too grand for a person that was currently on Heaven's shit list.

...well, he suspected that he had always been on the shit list, really, but all of this had surely moved him right to the top of it.

It wasn't the material loss that got to him the most. That was trivial, in the scheme of things, and he could get back almost everything he had lost, book-wise, and start over.

No, it wasn't that. It was the fact that he hadn't known what it was like to not have a place to belong for quite a long time, and had never expected to again - or at least not for a while. He didn't quite know what to do with that feeling.

"I suppose that tomorrow I'll have to go out and attempt to make some sort of arrangements for a new dwelling." He sighed, deeper than an ocean, and for innumerable reasons.

"You can stay here as long as you want, Angel." Crowley murmured, sleepily, into the top of his head.

Aziraphale smiled, almost automatically, even though he knew Crowley couldn't see it in their current position. Perhaps it was actually more for himself than it was for Crowley, but he couldn't be sure. "Oh, that's very kind of you, dear. But I couldn't impose--"

"No." Crowley was suddenly a lot more awake again, and it showed in the evenness of his tone. "No, what I mean is--"

Aziraphale's mouth snapped shut as Crowley's opened to interrupt him, and Crowley felt that reaction down to his bones - his tongue tried its best to stick to the roof of his mouth afterward, but he somehow wrestled it back into obedience. He had already made the leap, consciously or not, and he needed to see it through. "Er, I'm sorry. But... what I mean is... I'd _like_ you to stay. If you would."

Aziraphale was well studied in picking out the hidden layers of Crowley's speech, and he could hear the true meaning of what he was saying, loud and clear, since he was no longer deliberately ignoring them.

_I'm not just being polite. I want you here-- I **need** you here. When I told you that you could stay, I never meant just for tonight. Please don't go where I can't see you, not right now. Don't let them take you where I can't follow._

If there was a better way to bring him to understanding than that... well, he didn't know it.

This _was_ his place to belong. Crowley was his home.

He settled down deeper into Crowley's chest, squeezing his arm for good measure as he slowly moved the demon's hand upward. Then there was a feather light, grazing touch of lips against skin - _so_ light that it might've been missed entirely if Crowley wasn't so hyper aware of everything going on in that room.

Of course, Aziraphale wasn't the only one who could read between the lines.

_Whatever happens tomorrow, I'm going to do all that I can to save you, and I know that you'll do the same for me. We've started this together, and we're going to finish it together. We will get out of this, and finally be **free**._

And then came the words, his healing balm.

"Then stay I shall."


End file.
